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Dvorak On The Future Of The Xbox
Thanks to PC Magazine for its John Dvorak-authored editorial discussing his view of the present and future for Microsoft's Xbox game console. Dvorak rages: "Microsoft has over $56 billion in the bank and should be dominating the console market. Unfortunately, the company's overall strategies have failed and may continue to fail, leaving the Xbox in the dustbin with the last great American hope for a super game machine, the 3DO box from circa 1993", before continuing: "I think it can be argued that high-expectation syndrome was partially responsible for the deaths of both the 3DO machine and Sega. It definitely plays into the Xbox story... Compare this rollout to the original Sony PlayStation 1's debut... it just kind of appeared and worked its way to the top by attrition." He ends by musing: "Keeping the Xbox alive is important to Microsoft. Its pride and prestige are at stake... We will see an Xbox II. Whether it fulfills Microsoft's dream or becomes a collector's item remains to be seen."
What color is the sky in Dvorak's world? The Xbox is outselling the Playstation 2. Xbox parties have quickly replaced LAN parties, and the fact that you can mod the hell out of it has almost turned soldering into a fad. The only place I can see the Xbox as hurting Microsoft is that PC gaming may suffer as a result. But what does Microsoft care if they already control most of the PC world through Windows anyway? If anything, the Xbox is increasing Microsoft's stronghold in the home.
This written from a Gamecube fan.
The World is Yours.
As a self-proclaimed Apple expert, he:
- Predicted the death of Apple for years and years,
- Predicted that the stratospherically successful iBook would be a disaster,
- Most recently, he predicted in March of 2003 that Apple would move the Mac to Intel in the next 12-18 months. Apple's got 3 months left to do it... what do you think the odds are?
The guy should change his name to "Anonymous Coward" for the amount of trolling he does. So now he's an Xbox "expert," eh?Dvorak?
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Dvorak is slowly becoming the Nostrodamus of the high-tech industry. I think it's about time he started writing apocalyptic theories in book form and sold them through thinkgeek. Meh, he certainly doesn't deserve space on any part of slashdot.
schild
editor, f13.net
This from a guy who claimed Apple should stop making computers and software and that blogs offer the world nothing new when it comes to original reporting.
Mr. Dvorak comes over as a barely-intelligible fanatic.
I'm the first to admit that the X-Box has not achieved global domination. The only company ever to have made such a first-impact on the console market is Sony, and they did this with the PS1 when they entered a market which was much less business-savvy and brand-conscious than the current console market. Microsoft have also yet to crack in to the Japanese market, although I sense this wasn't really one of their initial priorities. All the indications are that their focus is shifting in this direction, so I wouldn't be surprised to see this change.
What the X-Box has achieved in its first generation is to ship at least as many consoles as (and probably a good many more games than) Nintendo, despite Nintendo having many generations worth of experience of the market and a console with a remarkably low price-point. That this has proved expensive for Microsoft shouldn't come as a surprise, but nor should it diminish their achievement.
I'm not trying to flamebait anyone on, but I've noticed people (not just on this newspost) like to say that the Xbox is ruining the PC market because of cross-platform development. Besides Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows, both of which were developed by Ion Storm mind you, can anybody name another game that was hurt as the result of this? I think people are mistaking Ion Storm's poor choices in development as some sort of nasty plot by Microsoft to cripple the PC market, because they certainly wouldn't want people to go out and buy PC's that run their operating system, heh.
I don't believe that the Xbox is failing. Just look at E3 this year, and you can see that Xbox exclusives like Halo 2, Burnout 3, Jade Empire, Fable, etc were walking away with a lot of awards, not to mention Xbox Live's success. I'm not trying to say that Xbox is the best system, because I think each of the big three systems has their own strengths, and I own them all. I think it's outrageous to compare the Xbox to the 3DO, though, as to this day I couldn't name you a single game for the 3DO, whereas the average gamer is probably aware of Xbox's lineup.
Bollocks. Most of the games aren't even similar in style. No mouse or keyboard makes sure of that. Many more games are cross developed over consoles only than consoles and PCs. Consider this, if there was no Xbox then those games probably wouldn't even have had a PC release, the market is becoming too small to bother with, full as it is of stale FPS's and point and click RTS. This is in the same way that the Gamecube is starting to find itself without ports of certain games. Stop whining and be thankful. Don't blame the Xbox for the PC's demise, blame all consoles for being something that most people would prefer to play games on.
Yeah, and I bet you're still on your Voodoo 2 aren't you. Idiot. I suppose all your games from back then work too.
I turned my XBox on last night and it works just fine. Admittedly, it has been neglected of late as I've spent a lot of time on my PS2 playing FFXI. That aside, the XBox is not dying yet. Instead, the real threat comes from within Microsoft itself where the company has shown a history of cut and run on anything outside of Windows and Office. It's hard to argue the numbers though, since right now at least PC gaming may make more money for MS than XBox gaming since PC gaming must be driving some PC sales which of course means Windows and Office sales.
But, if they can come up with the games to drive sales in Europe and Japan, then things could turn around dramatically. I think (with no evidence whatsoever) that internal politics may be keeping them from doing what must be done in the way of aquiring local development talent for the overseas markets and of course marketing effectively there. There's no secret to what Sony did to become the dominant player in the console market. Microsoft just has to decide that this is a game they want to win. I think the future of the company depends on this more than they would like to admit given the rise of Linux and OSS solutions on the desktop.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started